Mandatory Conscription

"That's how things are."

"You should prepare yourself after you go back."

The dean of students, wearing a black uniform, crossed his hands and glanced at the thin teenager in front of him, a trace of sympathy flashing in his eyes.

"I've been included in the conscription quota?"

Lin Yuan looked stunned.

He had just transmigrated not long ago and had yet to adapt.

Only to receive this bolt from the blue.

Actually, for an ordinary student like Lin Yuan,

conscription was not necessarily a bad thing.

The government had always been generous with military spending.

Even as a conscript, the benefits were quite good.

But that was in peacetime.

Now, news had come from the border galaxies about an alien race invasion.

Many people guessed that the purpose of this conscription was to serve as frontline reserves.

In the year two million six hundred thousand of the Star Sea Calendar, the Universe Human Alliance carried out a fanatical interstellar expansion, occupying one galaxy and star system after another, inevitably making contact with other races and civilizations.

Resources were limited, and in order to vie for various interstellar resources, human civilization proactively initiated a series of conflicts and wars.

Those driven-out alien civilizations were all lurking in the shadows, watching human civilization and launching counterattacks at the slightest opportunity.

"This is trouble now."

Lin Yuan's mood sank.

He knew very well that although human civilization on the whole

held an absolute upper hand in wars against most alien civilizations,

on local battlefields, things were not all smooth sailing.

The alien civilizations deep in the starry sky were cruel and tyrannical,

with individuals growing to unimaginable extremes.

Tearing warships apart with their bare hands was definitely no empty claim.

Fighting against these aliens, even with human soldiers fully armed,

the average casualty rate still reached twenty to thirty percent.

In addition,

for the sake of wartime confidentiality,

all soldiers participating in the wars to exterminate aliens were forbidden to communicate with the outside world.

Local interstellar wars generally took a long time, and lasting a century or several centuries was entirely normal.

In other words, Lin Yuan had been selected for this conscription quota.

Even if he survived the period of fighting the aliens, he would likely spend the second half of his life on a cold outer-space warship.

Permanently unable to touch the soil and oceans of a living planet.

Lin Yuan took a deep breath. "Director, is there any room for discussion on this matter? My parents are waiting for me to support them in the future, and I still have a younger sister."

The dean of students tapped the table and said sternly, "Rest assured, by actively responding to the government's conscription policy, your family will be properly provided for."

"Your father's current position will be raised by one rank, and your mother will receive a decent job in the district."

"Your younger sister's tuition fees will be completely waived from now on, and after turning eighteen, she will have one opportunity for advanced study at a higher institution of learning."

".So you've already considered my funeral arrangements?"

Lin Yuan pressed his lips together, an indescribable complexity in his heart.

Fairly speaking, these conditions were acceptable.

His father was currently at a career bottleneck, one that most people could not break through for decades.

His mother was currently unemployed; if she could secure a decent job,

it would greatly improve their family's living conditions.

As for his sister's advanced study quota at a higher institution of learning, that was something money could not buy.

With his sister able to go to a higher institution for advanced study, saying her future prospects were boundless would be no exaggeration.

Only,

only,

only.

Why did all of this have to be built upon my sacrifice???

Lin Yuan had only transmigrated into this body a few days ago, and although he had fully absorbed all the memories,

facing this kind of scene where 'sacrificing one person brings happiness to a family,' an unspeakable repulsion still welled up in his heart.

"I still like life on the planet."

Lin Yuan was silent for a moment, unable to help speaking out.

Once he became a soldier, everything would be incorporated into militarized management.

By the time he wanted to refuse then, it would be too late.

Though refusing now probably wouldn't do much good either.

"Student Lin Yuan, serving the government is an obligation we citizens ought to fulfill."

"Besides, this conscription belongs to a mandatory policy. Since you've been selected, even if you don't want to go, it's useless."

"Moreover, young man, what's wrong with going out to explore the world? Being able to witness various alien races that only appear in textbooks is something ordinary citizens never manage to do in a lifetime."

"If you can perform meritorious service, who knows, you might even be transferred back to serve in the military command in the future."

"This is a rare opportunity that doesn't come by ordinarily."

The dean of students patiently comforted Lin Yuan with a few words.

"But."

Lin Yuan opened his mouth, still wanting to say a few more things,

when the dean of students gave a grand wave of his hand. "Alright, you can go out first. Spend more time with your family these next few days."

Under the gaze of the dean of students, Lin Yuan got up and left.

Outside the door,

more than a dozen students around Lin Yuan's age were standing in line waiting.

As soon as Lin Yuan came out, a student walked in.

"Classmate, the director asked us to come over-what's this about?"

A dark-skinned student hurriedly grabbed Lin Yuan's arm and asked in a low voice.

"You'll know once you go in."

Lin Yuan sighed, ignoring him, and walked straight away.

Before meeting the director, Lin Yuan never expected that he would be included in the mandatory conscription quota.

Just last week,

Lin Yuan had learned the news of the mandatory conscription from an authoritative media broadcast on this planet.

Only at the time, Lin Yuan hadn't paid it much mind.

The scope of the mandatory conscription included the entire Azure Wave Star and dozens of surrounding living planets.

Azure Wave Star had a permanent population of fifty billion,

while the conscription quota allocated to Azure Wave Star was mere hundreds of thousands.

From a probability perspective, the citizens selected by the mandatory conscription were roughly one in one hundred thousand.

With such a slim possibility, Lin Yuan hadn't taken it to heart at all.

Yet reality was filled with all sorts of surprises;

the original owner had bought various kinds of lottery tickets for over a decade without winning a single time, yet the mandatory conscription quota with a mere one-in-one-hundred-thousand chance was hit the moment it was drawn.

Returning home,

Lin Yuan found that both his parents were present, and even his young younger sister was rarely seated at the table,

drooling at the cake in front of her yet not daring to reach out her hand.

"Xiaoyuan."

His mother, Lu Qiong, stood up, her gaze hesitating as she looked at Lin Yuan.

His father, Lin Shoucheng, sat there frowning, not knowing what he was thinking.

Clearly, the matter of Lin Yuan being included in the mandatory conscription quota had already reached the home.

In fact, compared to Lin Yuan, his parents had known about this matter even earlier.

"There is still room to maneuver regarding the conscription."

"Tomorrow, I will go find your uncle and have him step in to smooth things over."

His father, Lin Shoucheng, spoke.

The uncle he mentioned was a distant relative,

currently working at a certain research institute and holding quite a bit of social connection.

"No need."

Lin Yuan shook his head.

The mandatory conscription policy was issued by the government.

Leave aside a mere employee of some unknown research institute.

Even the Archon of Azure Wave Star would have to pay a heavy price to alter it.

Of course,

if Lin Yuan really had connections with the Archon,

his name would never have appeared on the conscription list in the first place.

Before the conscription list came out, one could spend money and pull strings.

There was hope of staying off the list.

Yet once the list was finalized, getting off it was difficult.

"I am a bit tired."

"I am heading back to my room first."

Lin Yuan ate a little casually, then stood up and returned to his own room.

How to escape the mandatory conscription quota.

Lin Yuan lay flat on his back on the soft bed, still holding onto a final shred of hope in his heart.

"Connect to the Goddess of Wisdom."

Pondering for a moment, Lin Yuan sat up.

The Goddess of Wisdom was one of the three great goddesses of the Universe Human Alliance.

She was the core intelligent processing system of the entire civilization, commanding the overall operation of civilization, in charge of all affairs of every citizen of Human Civilization, strictly monitoring any abnormal behavior, and making her execute all operations according to the Human Civilization Charter.

Over the span of more than two million years of the Star Sea Calendar, the three goddesses contributed immensely to the ability of Human Civilization to sweep across numerous alien races.

Without the absolutely selfless processing methods of the three goddesses, the Cosmic Human Civilization would probably have perished from internal strife long ago; how could it have developed into such a vast, glorious, and brilliant civilization?

Humans possessed emotions, experienced cognitive biases toward things, and were influenced by emotions to make wrong decisions, but the goddesses did not.

The stance of the three goddesses always belonged to the entire Human Civilization, devoid of any selfish motives, and capable of maintaining eternal fairness.

The Goddess of Wisdom connected by Lin Yuan was naturally not the true master consciousness of the Goddess of Wisdom.

Instead, it was an insignificant sub-consciousness differentiated by her, belonging to the welfare owned by every citizen.

"First Level Citizen Lin Yuan of the Universe, please state your question."

An electronic synthesized voice rang out in Lin Yuan's ear, following the omnipresent network.

"I want to know, what are the conditions to be exempted from mandatory conscription?"

Lin Yuan organized his language and inquired.

"Mandatory conscription originates from Article 156 of the Charter, used to maintain the stability of Human Civilization and wage external wars. All human citizens have the obligation to cooperate with conscription."

"Mandatory conscription can be exempted under the following three circumstances."

"One: Evolutionaries, humans walking on the evolutionary path, are the hope of Human Civilization and possess the privilege of refusing the mandatory conscription policy."

Evolutionaries. Lin Yuan wore a complex expression.

In the long Star Sea Calendar, evolutionaries were no secret.

There were many ways to become an evolutionary.

They were mainly divided into unique type evolutionaries and universal type evolutionaries.

Unique type evolutionaries were easy to understand: evolutionaries who could not be popularized or replicated.

For instance, certain evolutionary families passed down through bloodlines belonged to this category.

There were also some individuals who underwent an unreplicable special process, mutated, and possessed extraordinary power.

They also belonged to unique type evolutionaries.

As for universal type evolutionaries, they were humans who stepped onto a stable evolutionary path.

Such as Gene Warriors, who took expensive Gene Potions and stepped onto the evolutionary path.

As well as Mental Masters, who were killing machines manufactured through cruel training and torture, matched with specific cultivation methods, and so on.

Any stable evolutionary pathway was exceptionally precious.

It was valuable knowledge explored with their lives by countless predecessors.

I should just be an ordinary person.

Lin Yuan sighed.

An ordinary person meant having no affinity with unique type evolutionaries.

If Lin Yuan wanted to become an evolutionary, he could only consider stable evolutionary pathways.

It was just that the latter was not a matter of overnight success; a few evolutionary pathways like Gene Warriors could be rushed.

However, that was built on the foundation of expensive Gene Potions and other treasures. In the Universe Human Alliance, Gene Potions belonged to strictly controlled products.

Ordinary people simply had no qualification or channel to purchase them.

Taking a step back, even if a Gene Potion were placed in front of Lin Yuan, he could not afford it either.

Just as Lin Yuan was pondering.

The cold, indifferent electronic synthesized voice sounded once again.

"Two: Fourth Level Citizen of the Universe, will possess an exemption privilege every ten years, which can offset mandatory conscription."

"Fourth Level Citizen."

The corners of Lin Yuan's mouth twitched slightly.

In Star Sea Era Year One, Human Civilization established the citizen level system.

Citizens were divided into twelve levels; the higher the citizen's level, the greater the privileges they possessed.

And the method to raise citizen level was through contributions to Human Civilization.

On this point, monitored and implemented by the three goddesses, it was absolutely fair.

Therefore, raising the citizen level was exceptionally difficult.

Almost ninety-nine percent of citizens, from birth to death, remained merely First Level Citizens.

Naturally, accompanying this were the numerous privileges of high-level citizens.

Starting from Fourth Level Citizens, one possessed an exemption privilege once every ten years.

This could pardon the punishments of citizens below severe criminals.

Mandatory conscription also fell into this category.

However, relying on the Lin Family's current connections, where would one go to know a Fourth Level Citizen?

One had to know that across the entire Azure Wave Star currently, the resident population was fifty billion.

The only one whose citizen level reached the fourth level was a single person.

That was the Archon of Azure Wave Star.

A big figure wielding the life and death of tens of billions of citizens.

"What about the third circumstance?"

Lin Yuan could not help but inquire.

"Three: Make contributions to Human Civilization and be promoted to a Second Level Citizen, and mandatory conscription can be exempted."

The electronic synthesized voice came over once more.

Yet this caused Lin Yuan to fall into silence once again.

A Second Level Citizen, even if not an evolutionary, held a status no lower than most evolutionaries.

The privileges possessed by evolutionaries naturally belonged to Second Level Citizens as well.

Yet this was even harder than becoming an evolutionary.

At least Lin Yuan knew how to become an evolutionary, even if he could not do it himself.

However, being promoted to a Second Level Citizen required contributions that could be recognized by the Goddess of Wisdom, which he was completely clueless about.

"Which specific actions can be counted as contributions?"

Lin Yuan tentatively asked.

"Providing a brand new evolutionary pathway will earn massive contributions."

The electronic synthesized voice sounded.

Vaguely, Lin Yuan realized that the Goddess of Wisdom attached great importance to brand new evolutionary pathways.

Otherwise, she would not use massive contributions as a reward.

Let's think of other ways then.

Lin Yuan rubbed the space between his brows. Among the three circumstances provided by the Goddess of Wisdom,

not a single one was something Lin Yuan could currently accomplish.

Especially the last one: providing a brand new evolutionary pathway?

If Lin Yuan had this, he would have advanced to a Second Level Citizen long ago; would he still be waiting to be forcibly conscripted? Unawares, it was already the middle of the night.

Lin Yuan also gradually fell into a sound sleep.

Suddenly.

Just at this moment.

A strange suction force pulled Lin Yuan's mind toward his mindscape.

And deep within the mindscape, a grand, towering door of light manifested.

Inside the door, it was filled with pale blue light screens.

Like ripples of water, they continuously surged.

"What is this?"

Lin Yuan started violently.

Then he jolted awake from his dream.

It's not a dream.

Even after waking, Lin Yuan could still sense the gate of light deep within his mind.

At the same time.

Lines of illusory text flashed across the lower part of Lin Yuan's field of vision.

Name: Lin Yuan
Status: Wielder of the Door of Myriad Worlds
Realm: None
Talent: None
Divine Powers: None